Dear Editor,

Last week’s report ‘Local prosecution of war criminals raises peace hopes in Uganda’ (Page 14) was a helpful overview of the current situation in one of the region’s worst ongoing human rights tragedies.  The unfolding nature of the protracted rein of terror by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) on impoverished local populations in northern Uganda is also a reminder of two increasingly familiar themes in efforts to secure peace.
Firstly, there is an unresolved tension between justice, rights, peace and reconciliation.  The LRA has been kicked into action towards a domestic settlement by the raising of war crimes indictments by the International Criminal Court (ICC).  Any ‘truth’ process leading to reconciliation will likely, as is typically the case, require yet another major sacrifice by the worst victims.
This normally takes the form of a public act of forgiveness to the perpetrators of gross acts of violence, including – for the LRA – widespread killings, rapes, mutilations, and abductions of children as soldiers and sex commodities.
Your report points out that the threat of ICC prosecutions is seeing increased support by Ugandan government and LRA leaders for a sounder domestic judicial process.  This may see a few rebel leaders dealt with in a court, but so-called ‘lesser’ offences by the vast majority (inevitably including those such as mentioned above) resolved in a ‘truth commission’.
Experience repeatedly shows us that such a course helps the healing process by allowing victims to get their suffering on public record and to receive some – sometimes genuine – remorse from the perpetrators, but that it often leaves those victims heavily scarred by the associated impunity and denial of meaningful justice.  This is something that Archbishop Tutu has acknowledged as a weakness of the
South African post-apartheid process.  Is it of little surprise that the truth commissions become a useful ‘exit strategy’ for gross violators of human rights, especially when an ICC process is hanging over their heads.
Secondly, it follows that whilst the perpetrators are exonerated, the victims remain victims. Facing their abusers may even re-victimise them.  When I was working in Uganda last November, the local media reported the spontaneous appearance in many villages of LRA leaders calling for their victims’ forgiveness for past violations.  This was part of a strategy to weaken the ‘need’ for the ICC prosecution process.  It was divisive and damaging to the local villagers, who could be seen anguishing over how to respond.  Whilst some replied that they would forgive the LRA if it finally meant peace, others demanded justice for such appalling and protracted terror.  In all reports that I saw, all interviewed villagers were women, who had usually lost husbands, sons and daughters at the hands of the LRA.  The last thing that the villagers in the LRA’s sphere of hostilities need is to be ‘empowered’ (terrorised again) in this process of seeking forgiveness in order to avoid justice.
Of course, the LRA practice of bodily and facial mutilations means that there is an ongoing living legacy of their presence.  This can be seen on the streets of Kampala, with even quite young children, with missing limbs, begging, possibly put there by
adults as a new form of exploitation – it is hard to know.  
When I was there in November, the many homeless and destitute women and their babies and children had been removed from the streets due to the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting.  
But it is as least an important reminder that the many women and child victims will remain victims regardless of the outcomes of a peace process and a few court prosecutions. It is also, however, a reminder that finding the best way forward is a very difficult issue, especially given the attention to balancing the interests of the main ‘parties’.  In the inevitable political tradeoffs deemed necessary to secure a durable resolution of this situation, it is the overarching remedies (including justice) for the victims that will determine the sustainability of the peace and the correctness of the process.  It is to be hoped that the government of Uganda exercises the necessary wisdom in keeping the best interests of the victims at the forefront of any process to end this tragedy.
Incidentally, like other reports on the LRA, there was no reference to a crucial question: exactly what has the LRA been fighting for over all these years?  For any impunity or leniency for such numerous, severe and protracted atrocities there must surely have been some noble cause which was presumed to justify those actions!  Apart, that is, from its initial goals to ensure a Christian-based national government, or subsequent objective of ruling the northern areas in accordance with the Ten Commandments.

Robert Johnson
Klein Windhoek

Dear Editor,

I know I’m not supposed to use space in this paper to attack people, but I believe a spade must be called a spade. My gigantic gripe concerns people who are praising the so-called Brave Warriors for their pathetic performance at AFCON. Of the six  matches the Warriors played at AFCON, and out of a maximum of 18 points that they could have taken, they only managed one point, which translates to 5,6%. I guess if your kid attained 5,6% in a test at school a feast would be held. This was a pathetic performance from these footballers if they are fit enough to be called so.
Heads must roll. Some might argue that they have at least improved from 0% in ‘98 to 11% in 2008 but it is still a massive failure. People must criticise where criticism is due and we should take note of the aftermath of Burkina, where unnecessary praise was heaped upon the warriors by the architects of comebacks. Well these so-called architects were still daydreaming about the beautiful girls they saw in  Burkina Faso that they forgot that the real job of an architect is supposed to be building the future.
They only recovered from their deep slumber after our neighbours gave us heavy beatings. Probably even Somalia could have scrambled together a team to hold our best. It took us a decade to qualify again because of this basking in fake glory. Being the expert I am, I am not afraid to call a spade, a spade and I have this to say to NFA  and the fake warriors, you have a lot of hard work to do and you should have started to prepare for 2010 as soon as the first day of football rolled between the Orange and Kunene rivers.

From Allen